Gregory of Tours, in his Miracles of Martin (1.2), recounts how 'Paulinus of Nola' (in fact, Paulinus of Périgueux) rendered Sulpicius Severus' Life of *Martin (ascetic and bishop of Tours, ob. 397, S00050) into verse in five books, adding a sixth about his posthumous miracles. Gregory summarises these miracles and recounts how, when Paulinus received the list of miracles, the document cured his grandson; he also refers briefly to the four books in verse on the Life of Martin by Venantius Fortunatus. Written in Latin in Tours (north-west Gaul), 573/576.
E02802
Literary - Hagiographical - Collections of miracles
Gregory of Tours
Gregory of Tours, Miracles of Martin (Libri de virtutibus sancti Martini episcopi) 1.2
Summary:
Paulinus wrote five books of verse on Martin's deeds, which Severus [= Sulpicius Severus] had described in prose, and collected the miracles that had occurred after his death into a sixth book. Gregory offers brief summaries of these miracles:
The possessed, hurled into the air and into a well in the basilica of Martin, when pulled out are cured. 'I have seen this happen, in the same well also in our times' (Idque in eodem puteo, et nostris temporibus vidimus gestum)
Another possessed man swam the river [Loire] without any harm, and emerged in dry clothes; he came to Martin's cell at Marmoutier and was cleansed there.
While Aegidius was being besieged [in Arles in 458], he prayed to Martin and the enemy fled.
A paralysed pagan girl celebrated vigils at the tomb of Martin in Tours and was restored to health, but again suffered paralysis when she reverted to paganism.
A Hun, who seized 'from the tomb the crown that declared the saint's merit' (coronam sepulchri, quae sancti meritum declarabat), lost his sight. When he restored his booty, he recovered his sight.
A man, who tried to strike someone in the forecourt (atrium) of Martin's church, instead stabbed himself with his sword.
A man, who opposed bringing columns to decorate Martin's church, fell from his horse into a small stream, was suffocated, and died.
Bishop Perpetuus brought a flask of oil to the tomb of Martin, and mixed into it some dust from its marble lid. The oil bubbled up and soaked the bishop’s garments with the fragrance of nectar. Many sick people were cured with this oil, and it kept storms away from the fields.
A man took some wax from the tomb and placed it in his field, which protected it from a storm.
When Easter was approaching, people went to the cell of Martin [at Marmoutier], kissing [literally, 'licking with kisses', allambens osculis] and wetting with their tears the places where Martin had been. When they tried to cross the river [Loire] in order to visit the tomb of Martin, a wind blew up and one boat was swamped. All prayed to Martin and were saved.
A man received some wax from Martin's tomb and kept it in his house; when the house was threatened by fire, he threw the wax into it and the flames were extinguished.
'When the sheet of papyrus with this list reached him [Paulinus], his grandson was in the grip of a serious illness. Putting his faith in the power of the saint, he said, 'If it pleases you, blessed Martin, that I might write something in your praise, may this be shown on this ill boy'. When the sheet was placed on his chest, the fever at once receded, and he who had been sick was cured.' (Verum cum ad eum huius indiculi carta venisset, nepus eius gravi tenebatur incommodo. At ille confisus in virtute sancti: "Si tibi" inquid, "placet, beate Martine, ut aliqua in tua laude conscribam, appareat super hunc infirmum". Positaque carta pectori eius, extemplo recedente febre, sanatus est qui erat aegrotus.)
The priest Fortunatus [= Venantius Fortunatus] has also written a poem in four books of the Life of Martin. Gregory will collect as many of the miracles of Martin after his death as he can find, to supplement the work of Sulpicius Severus and Paulinus.
Text: Krusch 1969, 136-139.
Summary: Katarzyna Wojtalik.
Cult building - independent (church)
Burial site of a saint - tomb/grave
Cult building - monastic
Place associated with saint's life
Non Liturgical ActivityComposing and translating saint-related texts
Prayer/supplication/invocation
Visiting graves and shrines
Vigils
Renovation and embellishment of cult buildings
MiraclesMiracle after death
Exorcism
Miraculous protection - of communities, towns, armies
Punishing miracle
Power over elements (fire, earthquakes, floods, weather)
RelicsContact relic - oil
Contact relic - dust/sand/earth
Contact relic - wax
Touching and kissing relics
Protagonists in Cult and NarrativesEcclesiastics - bishops
Ecclesiastics - monks/nuns/hermits
Other lay individuals/ people
Soldiers
Women
Pagans
Foreigners (including Barbarians)
Cult Related ObjectsPrecious material objects
Oil lamps/candles
Ampullae, flasks, etc.
Source
Gregory, of a prominent Clermont family with extensive ecclesiastical connections, was bishop of Tours from 573 until his death (probably in 594). He was the most prolific hagiographer of all Late Antiquity. He wrote four books on the miracles of Martin of Tours, one on those of Julian of Brioude, and two on the miracles of other saints (the Glory of the Martyrs and Glory of the Confessors), as well as a collection of twenty short Lives of sixth-century Gallic saints (the Life of the Fathers). He also included a mass of material on saints in his long and detailed Histories, and produced two independent short works: a Latin version of the Acts of Andrew and a Latin translation of the story of The Seven Sleepers of Ephesus.Gregory's Miracles of Martin (full title Libri de virtutibus sancti Martini episcopi, 'Books of the Miracles of Saint Martin the Bishop'), consists of four books of miracles, 207 chapters in all, effected by Martin, primarily at his grave and shrine in Tours. Most of them occurred at the time of the saint's festivals, on 4 July and 11 November. Gregory tried to record the miracles in chronological order, so historians have been able to calculate quite precisely the dates of the events and miracles mentioned in the work. This fairly precise chronology has enabled scholars to determine the dates of completion of each book. There have been three main dating schemes proposed for the composition of the four books. The oldest was suggested by Monod in 1872, another by Krusch in 1885, and then one by Van Dam in 1993 (for fuller discussion, see Shaw 2015, 103-105). Their datings of the individual books do not vary substantially, and in our entries we have given only those of Van Dam. Shaw 2015 convincingly demolishes an earlier theory, that Gregory wrote the Miracles in two distinct stages: a first stage that was written during a particular period, and a second stage in the early 590s, in which Gregory revised the whole work.
Book 1, with 40 chapters, was written between 573 and 576. In the prologue, Gregory mentions that he started writing after he became bishop of Tours in August 573. Book 1 must have been completed by 576, since Venantius Fortunatus in a letter to Gregory of that year referred to it (Epistula ad Gregorium 2, prefatory letter to Fortunatus' Life of Martin, MGH Auct. ant. 4.1, p. 293).
Book 2 consists of 60 chapters. It must have been finished before November 581, because the last miracles it mentions occurred in November 580, while the first ones recorded in Book 3 happened in November 581. Using the same methodology, the completion of Book 3, which also covers 60 chapters, can be dated between 587 and July 588.
Book 4, which consists of 47 chapters, seems never to have been completed, presumably because of Gregory’s death. There are two main arguments in support of the idea that it is unfinished. Firstly, Book 4 has no conclusion and no tidy number of chapters, while each of Books 1 to 3 has these elements. Secondly, the last story recorded in Book 4 is not about Gregory himself, unlike the final stories of Books 2 and 3.
Book 1 covers miracles that occurred before Gregory’s episcopate in Tours. The next three books are a running chronicle of Martin’s miracles under Gregory’s episcopate. Some of the miracles are recorded in very summary form, while others are much more elaborately presented: because of this, it has been argued that Gregory first jotted down notes, and only subsequently gave the stories full literary treatment (which in some cases, he was never able to do).
The three completed books of the Miracles of Martin were probably released as they were completed, rather that published together. In this sense they are the exception amongst Gregory's writings, since the rest of his work was not finally completed and seems to have been unpublished at the time of his death.
For discussion of the work, see:
Krusch, B. (ed.), Gregorii episcopi Turonensis miracula et opera minora (Monumenta Germaniae Historica, Scriptores rerum Merovingicarum 1,2; 2nd ed.; Hannover, 1969), 2–4.
Monod, G., Études critiques sur les sources de l’histoire mérovingienne, 1e partie (Paris, 1872), 42–45.
Shaw, R., "Chronology, Composition and Authorial Conception in the Miracula," in: A.C. Murray (ed.), A Companion to Gregory of Tours (Leiden-Boston, 2015), 102–140.
Van Dam, R., Saints and Their Miracles in Late Antique Gaul (Princeton, 1993), 142–146, 199.
Discussion
Gregory confused here, and elsewhere in his writings, Paulinus of Nola (ob. 431) and Paulinus of Périgueux, who in the 460s wrote a hexameter poem in six books, the Life of saint Martin (De vita s. Martini), about Martin's life and miracles, the sixth book of which is an account of twelve miracles of the saint that had been collected by Perpetuus, the then bishop of Tours (458/459-488/489). For a summary of this sixth book, with references to more detailed consideration of some of the miracle stories, see E08130.Gregory's focus in his Miracles of Martin is on Martin's posthumous miracles (those in life having been recorded by Sulpicius Severus in his Life and Dialogues): he therefore included a summary of those recorded in the mid-fifth century by Paulinus (in his sixth book), as a prelude to those that he (Gregory) was himself about to record. Gregory lists the miracles in the same order as Paulinus presented them, and provides fairly accurate summaries, though there is some slight divergence (for instance, the man who stabs himself in the forecourt of the church, had, according to Paulinus, killed the man he had attacked, whereas in Gregory he only sought to harm him).
Venantius Fortunatus, who also wrote a poetic Life of Martin, referred to here, was a contemporary of Gregory's; his verse Life (E06356), since it is mentioned here by Gregory, must have been completed and circulated before 576.
Bibliography
Editions and translations:Krusch, B. (ed.), Gregorii episcopi Turonensis miracula et opera minora (Monumenta Germaniae Historica, Scriptores rerum Merovingicarum 1,2; 2nd ed.; Hannover, 1969), 134–211.
Van Dam, R. (trans.), Saints and Their Miracles in Late Antique Gaul (Princeton, 1993), 200–303.
de Nie, G. (ed. and trans.), Lives and Miracles: Gregory of Tours (Dumbarton Oaks Medieval Library 39; Cambridge MA, 2015), 421–855.
Further reading:
Murray, A.C. (ed.), A Companion to Gregory of Tours (Leiden-Boston, 2015).
Shanzer, D., "So Many Saints – So Little Time ... the Libri Miraculorum of Gregory of Tours," Journal of Medieval Latin 13 (2003), 19–63.
Katarzyna Wojtalik
14/05/2017
| ID | Name | Name in Source | Identity | S00050 | Martin, ascetic and bishop of Tours, ob. 397 | Martinus | Certain |
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